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refugees international
Fears of ‘Cataclysmic’ Refugee Crisis Grow as 3.2 Million Iranians Already Displaced by US-Israeli War
"If this evolves into a long-term war, and particularly if internal conflict emerges in Iran, the humanitarian consequences could worsen dramatically," said the president of Refugees International.
Mar 12, 2026
In less than two weeks, the US-Israeli war in Iran has caused a displacement crisis that Refugees International warns is "on course for cataclysmic civilian harm, displacement, and humanitarian need," amid repeated strikes on civilian sites and infrastructure.
As many as 3.2 million people are estimated to be temporarily displaced inside Iran, according to a report released Thursday by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Most of those who've been forced to flee their homes have been in Tehran and other urban centers, where US and Israeli airstrikes have been the heaviest, the report said.
Since the war was launched on February 28, Iranian authorities and humanitarian groups have reported widespread attacks on civilian areas and infrastructure by US and Israeli forces.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported on Wednesday that nearly 20,000 civilian buildings, including at least 16,000 residential units, have been affected by strikes, along with 77 healthcare facilities and 65 schools.
About 200 children in Iran are among approximately 1,300 killed and 9,000 injured in less than two weeks of war, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which cited figures from national authorities.
"The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran has been characterized by multiple strikes on civilian sites and infrastructure by all sides, often with flagrant disregard for civilian safety," said Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International, on Wednesday. "The United States/Israeli coalition has struck numerous civilian sites in Iran, and the Iranian military has struck multiple civilian sites in Israel and in multiple Gulf countries."
"These attacks on civilians have already caused hundreds of needless deaths and displaced hundreds of thousands of people," he added. "The humanitarian impact could expand exponentially if this develops into a prolonged war."
The deadliest single attack on civilians has been the bombing of the Minab elementary school in southern Iran on the first day of the war, where at least 175 people, mostly girls ages 7-12, were massacred. Preliminary findings of an investigation by the Pentagon reportedly indicate that the United States was responsible for the attack. Konyndyk said it was "likely the largest number of child casualties in a single US military attack since the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968."
"But the Minab strike is far from the only strike on civilian sites. US and Israeli attacks have struck other schools, multiple medical facilities, numerous residential areas, and a water desalination plant. Iranian attacks have also struck civilian targets and infrastructure, including a desalination plant and urban residential areas," Kondynyk said. "All such sites are protected under international humanitarian law (IHL), raising the serious prospect that these strikes could constitute war crimes."
He added that "It is difficult to regard the pattern of US strikes on civilian sites as mere tragic accidents when the United States has systematically removed many of the safeguards that once helped prevent harm to civilians."
He condemned comments by US Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissing the "stupid rules of engagement" and his closure of a Pentagon office tasked with preventing civilian harm in order to maximize "lethality," according to a recent investigation by ProPublica.
Hegseth emphasized last week that the United States was not planning to take in a, "new wave of Middle Eastern refugees” that might be forced to flee the region by continued attacks on Iran and other countries.
The Trump administration has let in virtually zero refugees from anywhere in the world since October, with the exception of white South Africans.
There are already around 25 million people living in the Middle East who are considered refugees, internally displaced, or had recently been returned after being displaced.
The defense secretary has said countries in the region are "capable" of handling the new influx of potentially millions more displaced people, even as the US has drastically reduced funds for international organizations that administer humanitarian aid and refugee resettlement.
There are more than 1.65 million refugees living in Iran, around 750,000 of whom are from Afghanistan. Kondynyk noted that many of them already "have limited access to their rights or safe passage and already face rights violations and scapegoating by the Iranian state."
More than 800,000 people in Lebanon have been forced to flee their homes this month, according to Lebanese authorities, following Israeli orders clearing over 100 villages in the south and outside Beirut.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of Gaza's nearly 2 million people still remain displaced after more than two years of genocidal war waged by Israel, which destroyed most civilian infrastructure, according to the International Organization for Migration.
"If this evolves into a long-term war, and particularly if internal conflict emerges in Iran, the humanitarian consequences could worsen dramatically," Kondynyk said. "A prolonged conflict risks creating displacement and humanitarian crises on a massive scale, even as US cuts have kneecapped the global humanitarian system built to respond to such crises."
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Critics Urge Senate to Reject Trump's Deadly Rescission Package, Regardless of AIDS Funding
One humanitarian leader pointed out that the bill contains $1.3 billion in cuts to initiatives "every bit as lifesaving" as the AIDS prevention program that Republicans spared amid public pressure.
Jul 15, 2025
Progressives and public health advocates on Tuesday were among those urging U.S. senators to vote against Republican legislation that would let President Donald Trump claw back billions of dollars already appropriated by Congress, even as GOP lawmakers ditched plans to cut funding for an HIV-AIDS prevention program that has saved tens of millions of lives in Africa.
Politico reported that Senate Republicans will remove $400 million in funding cuts to the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), an initiative of former President George W. Bush credited with saving more than 25 million lives in Africa since its implementation in 2003.
However, the rescission package—a version of which was passed last month by the House of Representatives—still includes $1.3 billion in cuts to humanitarian aid programs that Jeremy Konyndyk, president of the advocacy group Refugees International, called "every bit as lifesaving as PEPFAR."
These include programs to fund public health, emergency food and shelter assistance, peacekeeping, economic development, and other essential aid that helps stabilize war- and disaster-stricken populations in the Global South.
"Even though the Senate has removed $400 million in PEPFAR funding from the rescissions package, another $500 million in global health funding could still be cut," Think Global Health managing editor Nsikan Akpan noted Tuesday.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said Tuesday that the White House has agreed to an exemption for PEPFAR funding via a substitute amendment.
"It's substantially the same package and the Senate has to work its will and we've appreciated the work along the way to get to a place where they've got the votes," he explained.
Jacob Leibenluft and Devin O'Connor, respectively senior adviser and senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted that in addition to cuts to critical programs, the rescission package, combined with the Trump administration's wider campaign of unlawfully impounding funds, "could also make it far more difficult for Congress to fund the government in a bipartisan way in the future."
As the pair explained:
Most of the funds in the rescission package were enacted in March legislation that was passed by Congress—including on a bipartisan basis in the Senate—and signed into law by the president to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2025. To provide the 60 votes required to avoid a Senate filibuster, at least eight Democratic senators needed to join with 52 Republican senators to invoke cloture on the funding bill.
But presidential rescission requests operate under different rules and require only 51 votes to pass the Senate, so no Democratic votes are needed. If the Senate approves the package (which passed the House on a party-line vote), this would show that Republicans could quickly revise on a partisan basis, with merely 51 votes in the Senate, a bipartisan funding agreement reached only a few months earlier that required support from no fewer than 60 senators.
"Senators should keep those consequences in mind as they consider the president's current rescission request," Leibenluft and O'Connor advised.
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen cited both PEPFAR and the billions of dollars in other cuts to foreign aid contained in the package as reasons to oppose it.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took aim at the bill's $1.1 billion in cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which funds PBS and NPR.
"Like all authoritarians, Trump doesn't like criticism or objective reporting. He just wants flattery," the senator said on social media. "That's why he wants to defund NPR and PBS. We need media in this country that is not owned by billionaires and corporate interests. I will vote to support public broadcasting."
The chairs of the Congressional Tri-Caucus—Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.)—on Tuesday led a letter urging senators to reject the rescissions bill due to CPB cuts.
"CPB's elimination would decimate public media infrastructure, as the vast majority of its funding goes directly to local stations, many of which rely on it for over half their operating budgets," the lawmakers wrote. "In rural and tribal areas, this would shut down stations that serve as lifelines for public safety, education, and culturally relevant programming. Eighty percent of Native American and Alaska Native communities are rural or remote, and public television is often the only station reaching them consistently."
Polling published Tuesday by Data for Progress revealed that the proposed cuts in the rescission package are deeply unpopular, with a majority of respondents saying that funding for global health programs, public broadcasting, and developmental aid should be maintained at current levels or increased.
NEW: As Senate Republicans approach the Friday deadline to pass Trump’s rescissions package, voters reject the proposed billions of dollars in cuts to global aid and public broadcasting.We find that less than 30% of voters want cuts to these programs.www.dataforprogress.org/datasets/pol...
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— Data for Progress (@dataforprogress.org) July 15, 2025 at 6:54 AM
GOP senators—who are under pressure, as the proposed cuts must be approved by Friday under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) of 1974, the law they are using to skirt a Democratic filibuster—say they hope to pass the entire package before next month's summer recess.
On Monday, a coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration, alleging it violated the ICA and demanding the release of $6.8 billion in approved education funds that the suit argues have been illegally withheld.
"Courts across the country have made it clear to Donald Trump that he and his administration do not have the authority to unilaterally block funding that Congress has already approved," Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement. "These education grants are designed to help Michigan students thrive. By freezing them, the Trump White House is not just breaking the law but jeopardizing our kids' future."
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Sanders Slams 'War Criminal' Netanyahu Ahead of New Meeting With Trump to Plan Gaza Ethnic Cleansing
The progressive senator underscored that the Israeli leader has been indicted by the International Criminal Court "for overseeing the systematic killing and starvation of civilians in Gaza."
Jul 08, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday as the fugitive from the International Criminal Court met with lawmakers ahead of a second White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to advance plans for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the embattled Gaza Strip.
"As President Trump and members of Congress roll out the red carpet for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, let's remember that Netanyahu has been indicted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court for overseeing the systematic killing and starvation of civilians in Gaza," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement.
"This is the man Trump and Congress are welcoming this week: a war criminal who will be remembered as one of modern history's monsters," the senator continued. "His extremist government has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians and wounded almost 135,000, 60% of whom are women, children, or elderly people. The United Nations reports that at least 17,000 children have been killed and more than 25,000 wounded. More than 3,000 children in Gaza have had one or more limbs amputated."
"At this moment, hundreds of thousands of people are starving after Israel prevented any aid from entering Gaza for nearly three months," Sanders noted. "In the last six weeks, Israel has allowed a trickle of aid to get in, but has tried to replace the established United Nations distribution system with a private foundation backed by security contractors. This has been a catastrophe, with near-daily massacres at the new aid distribution sites. In its first five weeks in operation, 640 people have been killed and at least 4,488 injured while trying to access food through this mechanism."
Trump and Netanyahu—who said Monday that he nominated the U.S. president for the Nobel Peace Prize—are expected to discuss ongoing efforts to reach a new deal to secure the release of the 22 remaining Israeli and other hostages held by Hamas since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, as well as plans for giving Gazans what the prime minister described as a "better future" by finding third countries willing to accept forcibly displaced Palestinians.
Critics said such euphemistic language is an attempt to give cover to Israel's plan to ethnically cleanse and indefinitely occupy Gaza. Observers expressed alarm over Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz' Tuesday affirmation of a plan to force all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp at the southern tip of the strip.
"There is no such thing as voluntary displacement amongst a population that has been under constant bombardment for nearly two years and has been cut off from essential aid," Jeremy Konyndyk, president of the advocacy group Refugees International and a former senior official at the U.S. Agency for International Development, told Reuters.
Most Palestinians are vehemently opposed to what they say would amount to a second Nakba, the forced displacement of more than 750,000 people from Palestine during and after the 1948 establishment of the modern state of Israel.
"This is our land," one Palestinian man, Mansour Abu Al-Khaier, told The Times of Israel on Tuesday. "Who would we leave it to, where would we go?"
Another Gazan, Abu Samir el-Fakaawi, told the newspaper: "I will not leave Gaza. This is my country. Our children who were martyred in the war are buried here. Our families. Our friends. Our cousins. We are all buried here. Whether Trump or Netanyahu or anyone else likes it or not, we are staying on this land."
Officials at the United Nations—whose judicial body, the International Court of Justice, is weighing a genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa and supported by around two dozen countries—condemned any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
"This raises concerns with regards to forcible transfer—the concept of voluntary transfers in the context that we are seeing in Gaza right now [is] very questionable," Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Tuesday.
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